3.  Chapter 3: Gross Errors or “Recastings”

This chapter aims at throwing light onto the two entrenched positions with regard to the quality of Lowe-Porter’s translations encountered in the previous chapter - or, in other words, it needs to be ascertained whether Luke and Buck are, in fact, justified in denouncing Lowe-Porter’s mistranslations as “palpable factual mistakes” and “unwitting errors of comprehension” (Luke 1988: xlvi) or whether her apologists such as Venuti or critical defenders of her work such as Mandel (1982) and Hayes, are justified in exonerating them as “recastings”, “reinterpretation” (Venuti 1998) and “paraphrasing” (Hayes 1974: 265).

All the critics referred to admit that Lowe-Porter’s translations do, in fact, contain errors, but it will be seen in this chapter that the opinions concerning both the frequency and gravity of these errors are extremely diverse. It will also be seen that Luke’s and Buck’s descriptions of the errors are self-evident to any one with a reasonable knowledge of the two languages. Certainly, in the literature, no one has challenged Luke’s and Buck’s examples illustrating the specific points made in all their articles. For this reason, it is not necessary to become involved in the debate as to defining what is meant by an error. In any case, Joyce (1997) rightly remarks:

There are almost as many theoretical differentiations of errors as there are theorists […] (Joyce, 1997: 146)

Buck further substantiated his views on Lowe-Porter’s inadequacy for the task of translating Thomas Mann by undertaking an error analysis based on selected sections from various works by Mann and comparing them with the Lowe-Porter translations. His conclusions support the contention that the errors involved here are of the most drastic variety:

But her credibility as a translator collapses completely when the awful reality of the scale and nature of the errors that mar her work is confronted. It almost beggars belief that the translation of the life’s work of one of Europe’s leading writers this century should have been entrusted to someone who had such a limited understanding of, and feeling for, German, a deficiency compounded by her at times unnatural handling of English. (Buck 1996: 918)

Even though most of the errors are a case of “undergraduate howlers”¹³ as Luke rightly refers to them, Venuti takes an extremely lenient view of their gravity in his letter to the TLS of the 24th November, 1995:

As a result, not only calculated choices, but errors can work marvellously for the domestic reader. And what seems fluent at one moment can’t be expected to seem so at another. Buck’s attack on Lowe-Porter’s ‘imprecision’ - in other words - naively assumes that translation can be a simple communication of the foreign text, uncomplicated by the translator’s reinterpretation of it according to domestic values. (My emphasis.)

This opinion was expressed at the height of the TLS controversy discussed in 2.6, but even after both Luke and Buck had illustrated their arguments with numerous examples of gross errors, Venuti (1998) still remained adamant in his defence of Lowe-Porter’s work in his book on translation theory published three years later:

Yes, translation errors should be corrected, but errors do not diminish a translation’s readability, its power to communicate and to give pleasure. (Venuti 1998: 32. My emphasis.)

It will be seen that this is an extraordinary statement with regard to Lowe-Porter’s errors to which this judgement is referring.

Appendix I shows that there are at least fifty grammatical and seventy-four (grave) stylistic errors in Tristan and Tonio Kröger alone. These errors vary from relatively trivial to gross, but their cumulative effect detracts seriously from the quality of the work and its readability.

It has been seen in 2.6 that Venuti (1998) refers to these errors as “other possible readings”, but even a cursory glance at the error analysis will establish that what is in question here is what Luke correctly described as “schoolboy” or “undergraduate” howlers. Venuti’s contention that there is some kind of academic conspiracy against her work is not convincing:

When texts from the academic canon of foreign literatures are translated by non-specialists, foreign-language academics close ranks and assume a don’t tread-on-my-patch attitude. They correct errors and imprecisions in conformity with scholarly standards and interpretations, excluding other possible readings of the foreign text and other possible audiences: for example, belletristic translations that may slight accuracy for literary effect so as to reach a general readership with different values. (Venuti 1998: 33)

Even though there may be an element of truth in Venuti’s point in general as a defence of domesticating or target-culture oriented translations, it does not apply to [page 29↓]Lowe-Porter whose errors are so frequent and so gross that if there is a ‘scandal in translation’, it is that, firstly, these errors have been allowed to remain uncorrected to the present day and, even worse, not only that her translations are used as texts in higher education but also that her translations are still being defended in both academia and the literary world. It is even more incredible that Lowe-Porter has supporters who still defend her work after having subjected her translations to academic analysis.

An early example of a Lowe-Porter ‘supporter’ is Hayes who, in his dissertation on the quality of Lowe-Porter’s translation (Hayes 1974), takes a lenient view of the mistakes:

However, the other examples cited by Luke do not, in my opinion, reveal an inadequate knowledge of German. Rather, they show what happened when Lowe-Porter undressed Mann’s thought and put an English garb on it. (Hayes 1974: 265)

It is, however, a pity that Hayes did not research into either the gravity or the frequency of Lowe-Porter’s mistakes in his otherwise conscientious study of her translations. Even though the Hayes’ study refers to Luke’s introduction in which some of Lowe-Porter’s gravest errors are listed, Hayes decides against undertaking an error analysis without offering any clear reason for this decision:

As little attention as possible will be paid to errors which are clearly due to lexical misunderstanding. I will attempt to show how the two translations differ otherwise with respect to one another and to the original. (Hayes 1974: 26. My emphasis.)

This seems to be a very unfortunate decision in view of the fact that his next heading immediately following the above quotation is a paragraph discussing the criterion of reliability for which he gives the following definition:

Thus I am using the term ‘reliability’ here to mean ‘producing the word-sense and ideas, and suggesting the literary features to an optimum extent’. (Hayes 1974: 26)14

If the “word-sense” is completely distorted as Luke strongly contends, then there is a serious loss of reliability according to Hayes’ own definition. The decision to give “as little attention as possible” to the errors seems even more incomprehensible in view of [page 30↓]the fact that Hayes’ supposition that the errors are not frequent is based on very unscientific anecdotal evidence:

Ever since my first acquaintance with Tod in Venedig, I have heard repeatedly from many different sides that ‘the’ [i.e. Lowe-Porter’s, J. G.] translation was rather poor because it lacked this or that quality, or because there were so many mistakes in it. The latter charge has often been confined to pointing out half a dozen or so lexical errors among the 25,000 words of text and condemning the entire translation on that basis. (Hayes 1974: 26. My emphasis.)

The fact that a few critics may have pointed out “half a dozen or so lexical errors” does not exclude the possibility of there being more mistakes than were noticed by the critics concerned. Hayes subjects the translations under investigation to several quantity analyses, but his very unscientific approach with regard to the errors seems to be deliberate blindness on his part as also appears to be the case with Venuti (1998). The seventy-six-page-long Error Appendix (Appendix I) attests both to the frequency and gravity of the errors which appear in the two novellas Tonio Kröger and Tristan.

The Error Appendix (Appendix I) which highlights 179 errors in Tristan and Tonio Kröger alone (excluding the eight errors already listed by Luke) is by no means exhaustive. Some of the listed errors may be disputable, but by far the majority are quite clear. The number of errors, defects and omissions are enormous for a mere 106 pages of a paperback edition. The errors in Der Tod in Venedig are not, however, included in the Appendix (other than the ones discovered by Luke) as these are studied qualitatively and in depth in the detailed analysis of later chapters and their inclusion would cause the Appendix to become too cumbersome.

Appendix I is a particularly important part of the thesis because for the first time a systematic line-by-line error analysis has been undertaken with regard to the quality of Lowe-Porter’s work and the frequency of her mistakes. Any analysis is bound to have a subjective element, but most, if not all, the Appendix I errors listed are clear and uncontroversial – errors in orthography, grammar, usage and lexis - all being the typical errors any teacher of foreign languages deals with on a daily basis. The errors have been checked by colleagues from both the world of professional translation and from academe some of whom are referred to in the acknowledgements in this dissertation. The reaction of every colleague has been one of great surprise that the translator for such an important author can make so many grievously elementary [page 31↓]errors. It is, in many ways, a sad task to list the errors of a highly respected translator, but it is necessary to do so in order to end once and for all the debate about the reliability of her translations.

The first example quoted by Luke (1988) refers to Spinell’s conversation with Frau Klöterjahn in Chapter VI of Tristan in which the aesthete expresses his delight with the Empire-style furnishings of the sanatorium. Part of the humour of this remark is based on Spinell’s highly pretentious assertion that there are times when he could not possibly live without the Empire style. The quotation below shows that Lowe-Porter gives the opposite meaning to the effect that the aesthete cannot stand the Empire style:

Mann: Es gibt Zeiten, in denen ich das Empire einfach nicht entbehren kann, in denen es mir, um einen bescheidenen Grad des Wohlbefindens zu erreichen, unbedingt nötig ist. (Mann 1977: 171-172)

Lowe-Porter: There are times when I cannot endure Empire and then times when I simply must have it in order to attain any sense of well-being. (Lowe-Porter 1978: 95)

Luke: Now, there are times when I simply cannot do without ‘Empire’, times when it is absolutely necessary to me if I am to achieve even a modest degree of well-being. (Luke 1988: 163)

It is quite clear that Lowe-Porter totally misunderstood the meaning of the verb entbehren and probably chose to translate it as “endure” because of its superficial resemblance to the false friends, ent behr en and ‘bear’. This would indeed, be regarded as an example of what Luke condemns as “undergraduate howlers”. On the other hand, Lowe-Porter cleverly maintains the general import of the whole sentence to avoid an obvious contradiction by implying that Spinell is very moody so that there are times when he cannot stand “Empire” and other times when he cannot live without it. However, this mistranslation still distorts Mann’s intended authorial intention because Spinell is also portrayed by Thomas Mann as a committed aesthete with exquisite tastes rather than a mere moody weakling¹⁵. Thus, Lowe-Porter’s [page 32↓]downgrading of Spinell’s aesthetic commitment involves a minor distortion of his character. Luke’s translation, though accurate, lacks humour and force. As an aesthete of exaggerated tastes is involved here, a translation such “There are times when I would simply lie down and die, were I to be deprived of Empire surroundings,” would not be too ‘free’ as the satirical perspective on Spinell is brought to the fore. From this first example, it can be seen that Lowe-Porter did indeed commit a “howler”, but also that the mistake, in this case, may not be quite so damaging as implied by the ferocious attacks of Buck and Luke.

Similarly, the second example Luke quotes from Tristan would also seem to be a “howler” as Lowe-Porter again gives the opposite meaning to a key word. This time the mistranslation has profoundly misleading consequences for any interpretation of the whole passage. The relevant passages occur in Chapter X and refer to Spinell’s opening of his letter to Klöterjahn. The aesthete describes how Klöterjahn put an abrupt end to an idyllic scene (Eden topos) when Gabriele Eckhof (later to become Klöterjahn’s wife) used to sit in a garden with her friends and family. The scene is deliberately described in the most overblown poetic terms:

Sieben Jungfrauen saßen im Kreis um den Brunnen; in das Haar der Siebenten aber, der Ersten, der Einen, schien die sinkende Sonne heimlich ein schimmerndes Abzeichen der Oberhoheit zu weben. Ihre Augen waren wie ängstliche Träume, und dennoch lächelten ihre klaren Lippen. (Mann 1977: 124-125)

Spinell then maintains that the highly poetic scene came to be destroyed by the gross and prosaic intrusion of Klöterjahn (Sündenfall topos). Spinell expresses his outrage in his letter:

Dies Bild war ein Ende, mein Herr; mußten Sie kommen und es zerstören, um ihm eine Fortsetzung der Gemeinheit und des häßlichen Lebens zu geben? (Mann 1977: 125)

For this reason, Spinell refers to the whole ‘story’ of Gabriele Eckhof`s ‘descent’ from an idyllic childhood and adolescence down to a prosaic, bourgeois marriage to a philistine in the form of Klöterjahn as “eine ganz kurze, unsäglich empörende Geschichte”. At this point, it would be relevant to give the whole quotation together with the two translations:

Mann: [...] ich erzähle lediglich eine Geschichte, eine ganz kurze, unsäglich empörende Geschichte [...] (Mann 1977: 124)

Lowe-Porter: I will merely tell a story, a brief, unspeakably touching story. (Lowe-Porter 1978: 119)

[page 33↓] Luke: I merely wish to tell you about something as it was and now is. It is a quite short and unspeakably outrageous story. (Luke 1988 123)

It is clear from the above quotation that Lowe-Porter had given the opposite meaning to the adjective empörend. As this basic mistranslation refers to Spinell’s assessment to Gabriele’s whole life story, the error is this time less excusable. This is all the more the case in view of the fact that Spinell was supposed to be a very fastidious writer who took great trouble to find le mot juste. (Even the collocation unspeakably moving is in itself infelicitous as the qualifier unspeakably is usually very negative so that a choice such as inexpressibly touching or even ineffably touching would demonstrate at least a consistent use of language.) It can be seen from these two examples alone that Luke’s judgement of her errors as “flagrant mistranslations” is not without foundation.

This judgement would also apply to the mistakes quoted by Luke in Tonio Kröger even though some of these errors may be of less consequence than the one quoted above. Luke’s next two examples, though perhaps trivial in themselves, would seem to support Buck’s and Luke’s contention that Lowe-Porter “had an inadequate knowledge of German” as they represent errors at the most elementary level of simple word recognition and would thus refute Hayes’ bald statement that these errors “do not reveal an inadequate knowledge of German” (1974: 7). In Chapter IV of Tonio Kröger, there is a description of Lisaveta’s easel and canvas in which the latter is covered with a network of lines. Lowe-Porter translates the noun Liniennetz as “linen mesh” rather than network of lines as can be seen to be correct in the Luke version below:

Mann: Und er betrachtete abwechselnd die farbigen Skizzen, die zu beiden Seiten der Staffelei auf Stühlen lehnten, und die große, mit einem quadratischen Liniennetz überzogene Leinwand. (Mann 1977: 221. My emphasis.)

Lowe-Porter: [...] and he looked at the colour-sketches leaning against chairs at both sides of the easel and from them to the large canvas covered with a square linen mesh. (Lowe-Porter 1978: 149. My emphasis.)

Luke: And he looked by turns at the color sketches propped against the chair backs on either side of the easel, and at the great canvas marked off in squares. (Luke 1988: 153. My emphasis.)

It is obvious, as pointed out by Luke, that Lowe-Porter had confused the noun Linien with Leinen. Although the mistake is trivial and of little consequence, it is clear that this is a case of confusion rather than an alternative interpretation.

The same applies to her translation the adjective ungewürzt in Chapter IV of Tonio Kröger as without roots rather than savourless or without spice. This is again a basic lexical error, i.e. the confusion of Würze with Wurzel:

Mann: Sie werden pathetisch, Sie werden sentimental, etwas Schwerfälliges, Täppisch-Ernstes, Unbeherrschtes, Unironisches, Ungewürztes, Langweiliges, Banales entsteht unter Ihren Händen. (Mann 1977: 223. My emphasis.)

Lowe-Porter: You get pathetic, you wax sentimental; something dull and doddering; without roots or outlines, with no sense of humour. (Lowe-Porter 1978: 152. My emphasis.)

Luke: You will become solemn, you will become sentimental, you will produce something clumsy, ponderous, pompous, ungainly, unironical, insipid, dreary and commonplace. (Luke 1988: 155. My emphasis.)

This passage is one of the more difficult ones in the story so that this mistake could lead to enormous confusions for the reader struggling with the main argument about art. ‘Rootless art’ may well be the brilliant product of a cynical genius whereas its contrary ‘art with roots’ is by no means positive in this context, as this could be precisely the sincere, deeply felt, yet banal bourgeois art rooted in emotion and honest feelings, in other words, the very kind of art which the protagonist is condemning. So what is condemned in the original is implicitly praised in the Lowe-Porter translation, thus virtually nullifying the whole of Thomas Mann’s argumentation at a stroke. Other aspects of this sentence are also a cause for concern even though they may not be directly subsumed under the heading of gross errors.¹⁶

Another example of a similarly misleading error cited by Luke can be found in Lowe-Porter’s translation of the adjective heiligend as healing to describe Russian literature:

Mann: Wie also: Die reinigende, heiligende Wirkung der Literatur [...] der Literat als vollkommener Mensch, als Heiliger. (Mann 1977: 227)

Lowe-Porter: [...] of the purifying and healing influence of letters [...] the poet as saint. (Lowe-Porter 1978: 156)

Luke: [...] of the purifying, sanctifying effect of literature [...] the writer as saint. (Luke 1988: 159)

This mistranslation may seem, at first sight, more innocuous than the other examples quoted above, but this error causes confusion in one of the main themes. Lowe-Porter’s misreading would wrongly assign Russian literature to the ‘healthy’ bourgeois world rather than to the alternative category of the artist as saint, thus representing a false picture of Lisaveta’s interpretation of literature, and in particular, of Russian literature¹⁷.

Luke accuses Lowe-Porter of “misconstruction of syntax” with regard to the next example quoted below:

Mann: Nein, Lisawetta, ich folge ihm nicht, und zwar einzig, weil ich hie und da imstande bin, mich vor dem Frühling meines Künstlertums ein wenig zu schämen. (Mann 1977: 224)

Lowe-Porter: No, Lisabeta, I am not going to; and the only reason is that I am now and again in a position to feel a little ashamed of the springtime of my art. (Lowe-Porter 1978: 153)

Luke: No, Lisaveta, I shall not follow him; and the only reason I shall not is that I am occasionally capable, when confronted with spring, of feeling slightly ashamed of being an artist. (Luke 1988: 156)

Owing to the strange word order in the italicised construction mich vor dem Frühling meines Künstlertums ein wenig zu schämen, the formulation would seem to be ambiguous and perhaps deliberately so as a play on the themes of ‘springtime’ and ‘art’. A less ambiguous formulation in German would be: mich meines Künstlertums vor dem Frühling ein wenig zu schämen. At the very least, Lowe-Porter’s interpretation could be regarded as a genuine translation blunder so that Luke has, in [page 36↓]this case, been rather harsh in listing this example under the category of ‘gross errors’ even though his interpretation would seem to be the correct one.

However, there are many other examples which would justify Luke’s attribution of some of Lowe-Porter’s syntactical errors to an inadequate knowledge of German, as in the following example:

Mann: Fast jedem Künstlernaturell ist ein üppiger und verräterischer Hang eingeboren, Schönheit schaffende Ungerechtigkeit anzuerkennen. (Mann 1977: 358)

Lowe-Porter: For in almost every artist nature is inborn a wanton and treacherous proneness to side with the beauty that breaks hearts. (Lowe-Porter 1978: 31-32)

Luke: Inborn in every artistic nature is a luxuriant, treacherous bias in favour of the injustice that creates beauty. (Luke 1988: 217)

This syntactical error of failing to distinguish between a subject and object in a preceding noun-qualifying phrase reveals a fundamental lack of knowledge of elementary German syntax. Unfortunately, her work contains many such mistakes. Besides the fifty examples of syntactical errors in Appendix I, there are also frequent similar errors ¹⁸ in Der Tod in Venedig. In such cases, Luke’s translation is far more accurate as there is no reason to doubt that he has an excellent knowledge of German. The notion of the very injustice of life creating a kind of beauty and art is lost in the Lowe-Porter version only to be replaced by the irrelevant cliché, beauty that breaks [page 37↓] hearts. This reduction also considerably diminishes the high literary and philosophical tone of the original even though it could be argued that her ‘free’ translation reflects the ‘art for art’s sake’ aestheticism which may well have been a familiar concept for the target readership at that time. Hayes’ contention in the light of examples such as these would seem to be unsustainable:

However, as it will be seen in the course of the discussion to follow, I contend that Lowe-Porter’s misinterpretations do not result from lexical problems, but from her approach to translating. The difficulty is ultimately literary, not linguistic, despite some demonstrable errors in her work, the charge that she did not know German cannot be allowed: (Hayes 1974: 70-71)

Another example of a case where the syntax had been completely misunderstood at even the most elementary level is quoted by Luke towards the end of her translation of Death in Venice when Aschenbach dreams that he is a witness to a Dionysian feast:

Mann: Aber alles durchdrang und beherrschte der tiefe, lockende Flötenton. Lockte er nicht auf ihn, den widerstrebenden Erlebenden, schamlos beharrlich zum Fest und Unmaß des äußersten Opfers? (Mann 1977: 393. My emphasis.)

Lowe-Porter: But the deep, beguiling notes of the flute wove in and out and over all. Beguiling too was it to him who struggled in the grip of these sights and sounds, shamelessly awaiting the coming feast and the uttermost surrender. (Lowe-Porter 1978: 76. My emphasis.)

Luke: But the deep enticing flute music mingled irresistibly with everything. Was it not also enticing to him, the dreamer who experienced all this while struggling not to, enticing him with shameless insistence to the feast and frenzy of the uttermost surrender. (Luke 1988: 256. My emphasis.)

Lowe-Porter fails to recognise beharrlich as an adverb qualifying the verb lockte and instead, takes it to be an adjectival predicate referring to Aschenbach. Luke’s grammatically correct version makes this point very clear. Lowe-Porter’s phrase referring to Aschenbach as shamelessly awaiting the feast misses the point that the temptation is portrayed as irresistible and this particular case also falsely attributes the ‘shameless’ guilt to Aschenbach. It is, of course, a difficult assessment to determine the extent of Aschenbach’s responsibility for his own descent, but Lowe-Porter’s mistranslation in this case would tip the scales to the wrong balance by placing too much moral responsibility on Aschenbach, thus missing the philosophical import which is expressed throughout both Tonio Kröger and Der Tod in Venedig that art is a curse which inevitably and of its own nature leads the artist to death and destruction. Together with Lowe-Porter’s treatment of the Würde theme to be discussed at a later [page 38↓]stage in this Section, this interpretation is another item reducing what is a philosophical tragedy to a conventional morality play. In the source text, the phrase schamlos beharrlich places some of the guilt on to the irresistibility of the music, thus confirming the key thesis in the Phaidros dialogues that the artist’s descent into decadence and death is inevitable:

Der Gegenstand war ihm geläufig, war ihm Erlebnis; sein Gelüst, ihn im Licht seines Wortes erglänzen zu lassen, auf einmal unwiderstehlich.(Mann 1977: 375. My emphasis.)

In contrast, however, some of her ‘mistranslations’ understate the ‘immorality’ of Aschenbach by playing down the homoerotic elements in the novella. Venuti (1998) argues that this is simply a case of reinterpretation:

Lowe-Porter’s version of Mann’s novella Death in Venice, criticised for giving a ‘false perception’ of the ‘interaction’ between the ageing writer Aschenbach and the enchanting youth Tadzio, could just as well be described as recasting their homoerotic dynamic to suit the greater moral strictness of an American audience during the 1930s. (1998: 33. My underlining)

An example of what Venuti refers to as “recasting their homoerotic dynamic” deserves to be quoted in full with regard to her domestication of the proper noun and monoseme der Eros with the vague, polysemic phrase of the god:

Mann: Ein Leben der Selbstüberwindung und des Trotzdem, ein herbes, standhaftes und enthaltsames Leben, das er zum Sinnbild für einen zarten und zeitgemäßen Heroismus gestaltet hatte - wohl durfte er es männlich, durfte es tapfer nennen, und es wollte ihm scheinen, als sei der Eros, der sich seiner bemeistert, einem solchen Leben auf irgendeine Weise besonders gemäß und geneigt. (Mann 1977: 53. My emphasis.)

Lowe-Porter: It had been a life of self-conquest, a life against odds, dour, steadfast, abstinent, he had made it symbolic of the kind of overstrained heroism the time admired, and he was entitled to call it manly, even courageous. He wondered if such a life might not be somehow especially pleasing in the eyes of the god who had him in his power. (Lowe-Porter 1978: 64. My emphasis.)

Luke: A life of self-conquest and defiant resolve, an astringent, steadfast and frugal life which he had turned into the symbol of that heroism for delicate constitutions, that heroism so much in keeping with the times - surely he might call this manly, might call it courageous? And it seemed to him that the kind of love which had taken possession of him did, in a certain way, suit and benefit such a life. (Luke 1988: 246. My emphasis.)

Although Luke probably rightly points out that the ‘tame’ translation of the proper noun der Eros as the common noun the god could be for reasons of prudery, his own version the kind of love seems almost equally vague. The theme of Eros is an [page 39↓]important element in the litany of Greek deities. The sequential logic of Aschenbach’s decline is reflected by the appropriate deity which dominates each corresponding stage of the decline. At first, Apollo symbolising form, order, beauty and perfection dominates when Aschenbach admires the formal perfection of Tadzio. At this stage, innocence, beauty and freshness are the dominant associations:

Dieser Anblick gab mythische Vorstellungen ein, er war wie Dichterkunde von anfänglichen Zeiten, vom Ursprung der Form und von der Geburt der Götter. (Mann 1977: 41)

Later, Eros holds Aschenbach in his ban during the stage quoted above when the artist’s over-disciplined life begins to be overtaken by obsession. At this stage which overlaps with the ‘Apollonian’ phase, Eros appears in his more innocent form as Amor together with all the relatively frivolous rococo associations:

Amor fürwahr tat es den Mathematikern gleich, die unfähigen Kindern greifbare Bilder der reinen Formen vorzeigen: So auch bediente der Gott sich, um uns das Geistige sichtbar zu machen, gern der Gestalt und Farbe der menschlichen Jugend, die er zum Werkzeug der Erinnerung mit allem Abglanz der Schönheit schmückte und bei deren Anblick wir dann wohl in - Schmerz und Hoffnung entbrannten. (Mann 1977: 53)

Eros then takes over Aschenbach’s mind so that the passion becomes an all-consuming obsession as has already been argued in this chapter.

Finally the destructive god Dionysus (“der fremde Gott”) dominates leading to the inevitable and tragic downfall and death of Aschenbach

Aber mit ihnen, in ihnen war der Träumende [i.e. Aschenbach, J. G.] nun und dem fremden Gott gehörig. Ja, sie waren er selbst, als sie reißend und mordend sich auf die Tiere hinwarfen und dampfende Fetzen verschlangen, als auf zerwühltem Moosgrund grenzenlose Vermischung begann, dem Gotte zum Opfer. Und seine Seele kostete Unzucht und Raserei des Unterganges. (Mann 1977: 394. My emphasis.)

Thus both translators miss an important link within the concatenation of deities.

As with the mistakes quoted from Tonio Kröger and Tristan, some of the thirteen mistranslations in Death in Venice listed by Luke do not adversely affect the main themes, but they do act as an irritant. For example, on page thirteen, she translates the noun Wertzeichen as tributes rather than as the correct version postage stamps, thus distorting once again the basic sense and meaning of this admittedly archaic lexeme:

[page 40↓] Mann: Der Vierziger hatte, ermattet von den Strapazen und Wechselfällen der eigentlichen Arbeit, alltäglich eine Post zu bewältigen, die Wertzeichen aus allen Herren Ländern trug (Mann 1977: 343)

Lowe-Porter: At forty, worn down by the strains of his actual task, he had to deal with a daily post heavy with tributes from his own and foreign countries (Lowe-Porter 1978: 13)

Luke: By the age of forty he was obliged, weary though he might be by the toils and vicissitudes of his real work, to deal with a daily correspondence that bore postage stamps from every part of the globe. (Luke 1988: 200-201)

Again the example may be trivial as the plural nouns tributes would fit in the context of Aschenbach’s eminence as a man of letters and no doubt the etymology of Wertzeichen with its ambiguous associations of Wert and Zeichen (i.e. ‘symbols of value’) which can have either a purely financial or a moral connotation could well have been a factor for Mann’s choice of this word rather than the more familiar Briefmarken. Luke is correct in listing this as an error, but it is hardly a gross error. This point is also made by Hayes:

And in this context, her incorrect rendering, “tributes” turns out to be relatively harmless in relation to the work as a whole. (Hayes 1974: 265)

However, Hayes’ bias in favour of Lowe-Porter is shown by the fact that this “relatively harmless” rendering is the only error cited by Luke that Hayes discusses in some detail. Indeed, based on the analysis of this one ‘harmless’ error, Hayes goes on to assert in the next paragraph:

However, the other examples cited by Luke do not, in my opinion, reveal an inadequate knowledge of German. (Hayes 1974: 265)

Lowe-Porter, however, frequently makes lexical or translation errors, forty-seven of which are dealt with in Section B of part (ii) in Appendix I under the heading “lexical errors”. All the other gross errors listed by Luke and numerous obvious errors in the text of Lowe-Porter’s Death in Venice are ignored in Hayes’ otherwise thorough study.

In the same chapter of Der Tod in Venedig, for example, there is confusion in Lowe-Porter’s translation between Tram and train. (Luke correctly translates die Tram as “the tram”. Similarly, on page ten of Lowe-Porter’s translation, Fuhrwerk is wrongly translated by Lowe-Porter as wagon whereas Luke’s choice of the noun vehicle is correct.) There are many other similar irritating examples¹⁹.

Another example of a minor, but irritating error identified by Luke can be found in her translation of quer as “diagonal” on two different occasions. The first is a description of the hotel on his arrival in Venice:

Thomas Mann: [...] und folgte dem Karren durch die Allee, die weißblühende Allee, welche Tavernen, Basare, Pensionen zu beiden Seiten, quer über die Insel zum Strande läuft. (Mann 1977: 356. My emphasis.)

Lowe-Porter: [...] and followed the hand-car through the avenue, that white-blossoming avenue with taverns, booths and pensions on either side it 20which runs across diagonally to the beach. (Lowe-Porter 1978: 29. My emphasis.)

Luke: [...] and followed the trolley along the avenue, that white-blossoming avenue, bordered on either side by taverns and bazaars and guesthouses, which runs straight across the island to the beach. (Luke 1988: 214-215. My emphasis.)

Similarly, a few pages further on in the same chapter, she translates the phrase querstehende Hütten as diagonal rows of cabins rather than, as in Luke, bathing huts at right angles to the main row.

Thomas Mann: [...] und schaute sich nach den querstehenden Hütten um. (Mann 1977: 362. My emphasis.)

Lowe-Porter: He looked towards the diagonal rows of cabins. (Lowe-Porter 1978: 36. My emphasis.)

Luke: [...] he looked round at the projecting row of huts (Luke 1988: 221. My emphasis.)

As Luke stated in his preface (1988: xlviii), this error could have been avoided by simply looking at a map.

Far more serious than the elementary errors just quoted is Lowe-Porter’s mistranslation of key-words which are connected to the basic motifs running through the novella. The theme of ‘dignity’ (Würde) is one of these central motifs as the novella traces the rapid tragic (also tragi-comic) descent of a highly renowned artist and moralist from his lofty self-disciplined life of Würde into passion, obsession, inner depravity, disease and death. The first example taken from Chapter II of Tod in Venedig presents Würde as the central aim of Aschenbach’s life:

Mann: Aber er hatte die Würde gewonnen, nach welcher, wie er behauptete, jedem großem Talente ein natürlicher Drang und Stachel eingeboren ist, ja, man kann sagen, daß seine ganze Entwicklung, ein bewußter und trotziger, alle Hemmungen des Zweifels und der Ironie zurücklassender Aufstieg zur Würde gewesen war. (Mann 1977: 17. My emphasis.)

Lowe-Porter: But he had attained to honour, and honour, he used to say, is the natural goal towards which every considerable talent presses with whip and spur. Yes, one might put it that his whole career had been one conscious and overweening ascent to honour, which left in the rear all the misgivings or self-derogation which might have hampered him. (Lowe-Porter 1978. 16. My emphasis.)

Luke: But he had achieved dignity, that goal toward which, as he declared, every great talent is innately driven and spurred; indeed it can be said that the conscious and defiant purpose of his entire development had been, leaving all the inhibitions of skepticism and irony behind him, an ascent to dignity. (Luke 1988: 203. My emphasis.)

Lowe-Porter’s interpretation implies that Aschenbach is guilty of hubris by her mistranslation of the adjective trotzig as overweening so that the phrase overweening ascent to honour is reminiscent of the notion of overweening pride, and thus of hubris. The aspect of trotzig understood as heroic defiance of obstacles such as disease and weakness, “Ein Leben der Selbstüberwindung und des Trotzdem” (Mann 1977: 346), is grossly distorted into “overweening” arrogance in the Lowe-Porter version. The fact that this interpretation could seem to be plausible makes it all the more insidious by adding yet another factor to her reduction of the tragedy to a morality play.

Another example of Lowe-Porter’s ignoring of the theme of dignity is quoted below:

Mann: [...] und gewiß ist, daß die schwermütig gewissenhafteste Gründlichkeit des Jünglings Seichtheit bedeutet im Vergleich mit dem tiefen Entschlusse des Meister gewordenen Mannes, das Wissen zu leugnen, es abzulehnen, erhobenen Hauptes darüber hinwegzugehen, sofern es [page 43↓]den Willen, die Tat, das Gefühl und selbst die Leidenschaft im geringsten zu lähmen, zu entmutigen, zu entwürdigen geeignet ist. (Mann 1977: 346. My emphasis.)

Lowe-Porter: And certain it is that the youth’s constancy of purpose, no matter how painfully conscientious, was shallow beside the mature resolution of the master of his craft, who made a right-about-face, turned his back on the realm of knowledge, and passed it by with averted face, lest it lame his will or power of action, paralyse his feelings or his passions, deprive any of these of their conviction or utility. (Lowe-Porter 1978: 17. My emphasis.)

Luke: [...] and it is very sure that even the most gloomily conscientious and radical sophistication of youth is shallow by comparison with Aschenbach’s profound decision as a mature master to repudiate knowledge as such, to reject it, to step over it with head held high - in the recognition that knowledge can paralyse the will, paralyse and discourage action and emotion and even passion, and rob all these of their dignity. (Luke 1988: 204. My emphasis.)

Lowe-Porter’s reading of zu entwürdigen as to deprive [these] of their utility cannot be justified in this context. What is meant by a ‘useful’ or ‘useless’ passion and emotion is very unclear and even less clear is the notion of depriving a ‘useful’ passion of its utility²¹. The Würde theme continues to be either ignored or misinterpreted by Lowe-Porter when she mistranslates die Würde des Geistes as “recognises his own worth”:

Mann: [...] wenn ein großes Talent dem libertinischen Puppenstande entwächst, die Würde des Geistes ausdrucksvoll wahrzunehmen sich gewöhnt und die Hofsitten einer Einsamkeit annimmt [...] (Mann 1977: 347. My emphasis.)

Lowe-Porter: [...] when a man of transcendent gifts outgrows his carefree apprentice stage, recognises his own worth and forces the world to recognise it too and pay it homage though he puts on a courtly bearing [...] (Lowe-Porter 1978: 18. My emphasis.)

Luke: [...] when a great talent grows out of its libertinistic chrysalis-stage, becomes an expressive representative of the dignity of mind, takes on the courtly bearing of that solitude, [...] (Luke 1988: 205. My emphasis.)

Lowe-Porter’s version may superficially seem to be in the spirit of this extract, but the phrase dignity of intellect is not the same thing as her mis-translated phrase “the writer’s own worth” nor is there any justification for her adding the phrase “forcing the world to recognise it and paying homage to it”, i.e. ‘to his own worth’. Her free interpretation continues to support the misreading of the work as a morality play. As with her insertion of the phrase “overweening ascent”, the idea of this artist [page 44↓]‘compelling’ others to pay homage to ‘his own worth’ would imply that the writer not only has narcissistic tendencies in his self-worship but also that his vanity is so extreme that it has a despotic element in “forcing” the world to pay homage to the artist. Again, by re-introducing her concocted ‘hubris’ theme, Lowe-Porter continues the process of reducing a philosophical tragedy into a trivial morality play, in which pride is ‘justly’ punished.

Besides the “flagrant mistranslations”, Luke accuses Lowe-Porter of serious omissions:

In addition, Mrs. Lowe-Porter was in the habit (and this applies to her translations generally) of unnecessarily and often damagingly excising words, phrases and even whole sentences. (Luke 1988: xlix)

Luke then goes on to give two examples of her omissions which contribute to Lowe-Porter’s distortion of a major theme. Luke claims that the first example is of lesser importance than the second, which will, however, be shown to be debatable.

The first example takes place in Chapter III in Der Tod in Venedig when Aschenbach is hurrying to catch his train to leave Venice. Aschenbach has decided to do the sensible thing and leave Venice on account of the sirocco wind which is carrying the cholera epidemic. He has at the same time discovered Tadzio with the result that Aschenbach feels reluctant to leave the city. He tries to persuade himself that it is just Venice that he is leaving. There is, however, a dim awareness that a great though possibly fatal adventure might take place if he stays.²² The passage in question takes place at the station where he learns that his luggage has gone astray, which gives him an excuse to stay. The conflict, whether to stay in Venice or not, is between his reason and his hidden passions. The whole passage can be argued to be a turning point because, after this incident, Aschenbach’s fate is sealed. He is, at the same time, so deeply satisfied with his ‘wrong’ decision that his mood bursts out into a mild form of delirious hysteria:

Eine abenteuerliche Freude, eine unglaubliche Heiterkeit erschütterte von innen fast krampfhaft seine Brust. (Mann 1977: 368)

The whole paragraph needs to be quoted in full together with Lowe-Porter’s translation. It will be seen that her version tones down the passage by placing the main emphasis on the external circumstance of the protagonist simply having the irritation of finding that his luggage has been redirected. (It could be argued that the ‘lost case’ incident, though theoretically trivial in itself, fulfils the structural demand for novellas by acting as an example of an unerhörtes Ereignis). In this context, Lowe-Porter’s omission of the sentence, “Er will es und will es nicht”, is a very serious matter because it shows that Aschenbach was divided about his return home and that the foolhardy decision to stay was at least indirectly willed by him. At the same time, it shows that, at one level, he wanted to do the correct thing. Pure chance or fate has intervened on his side so that the formula, art → eros → decadence → disease → death, takes its inevitable and tragic course. On the other hand, it also reminds the reader that if he really wanted to leave Venice, he merely needed to make alternative travel arrangements. The Lowe-Porter omission of the full sentence gives the impression that circumstances alone decided the outcome despite her indirect reference to the artist being torn between two possibilities. If this is coupled with her ‘morality play’ interpretation, chance has been allocated the role of nemesis leading to the ‘just’ downfall and punishment of Aschenbach. As has already been shown, there is no justification for this interpretation from the original passage:

Mann: Unterdessen nähert sich das Dampfboot dem Bahnhof, und Schmerz und Rastlosigkeit steigen bis zu Verwirrung. Die Abreise dünkt den Gequälten unmöglich, die Umkehr nicht minder. So ganz zerrissen betritt er die Station. Es ist sehr spät, er hat keinen Augenblick zu verlieren, wenn er den Zug erreichen will. Er will es und will es nicht. Aber die Zeit drängt, sie geißelt ihn vorwärts; er eilt, sich sein Billet zu verschaffen. (Mann 1977: 368. My emphasis.)

In addition to the omitted sentence indicated above, phrases either toning down the original or distorting the sense are indicated in italics in the Lowe-Porter version:

Lowe-Porter: Meanwhile the steamer neared the station landing. His anguish of irresolution amounted almost to panic. Torn between two alternatives, he entered the station. To leave seemed impossible to the sufferer, to remain not less so. It was very late, he had not a moment to lose, Time pressed, it scourged him onward. He hastened to buy his ticket [...]. (Lowe-Porter 1978: 44. My emphasis.)

Luke: In the meantime the vaporetto was approaching the station, and Aschenbach’s distress and helplessness increased to the point of distraction. In his torment he felt it to be impossible to leave and no less impossible to turn back. He entered the station torn by this acute inner conflict. It was very late, he had not a moment to lose if he was to catch his train. He both [page 46↓] wanted to catch it and wanted to miss it. But time was pressing, lashing him on; he hurried to get his ticket. (Luke 1988: 228. My emphasis.)

The total effect of the Lowe-Porter translation of this paragraph is to lose the momentous urgency of the original. Reed (1994) notes that the importance of this moment is emphasised by Thomas Mann’s dramatic use of the present tense and the anonymous reference to the English translation would certainly refer to the Lowe-Porter version, but, in this case, would also apply to Luke’s tense usage:

The botched departure is a classic piece of narrative even in this virtuoso text. There are sad images and rhythms for the ‘voyage of sorrow’ (made more immediate in the original by the shift to the present tense, which the English translations do not render), and then the sprightly rhythms of the return to the Lido, with ‘the rapid little boat, spray before its bows, tacking to and fro between gondolas and vaporetti,’ the very embodiment of joyful release. Aschenbach is as happy as a ‘truant schoolboy.’ The literal German sense - an ‘escaped’ schoolboy - sets off an even more ironic sequence. (Reed 1994: 48. My emphasis.)

In Lowe-Porter’s version, the moment of decision leading to the protagonist’s ultimate downfall, is trivialised to a mere irritating incident, namely Aschenbach’s loss of his baggage and portrays him as simply indecisive (“torn between two alternatives”) without any hint of the Wille theme in Schopenhauer’s use of this concept: i.e. the conflict between the blind Wille (in this case, Eros) and human reason in the form of the sensible decision to return home and avoid the cholera plague. Thus, not only are basic themes and motifs are botched by the Lowe-Porter omission but also any possibility of understanding the structure of the novella is blurred by her toning down of a passage which could be regarded as the Wendepunkt.

Luke justifiably expresses outrage at Lowe-Porter’s second omission of a full sentence almost at the very end of the story:

The more crucial and almost incredible case comes at the very end of the story, in the passage describing Aschenbach’s final vision and death. (Luke 1988: xlix)

Its context can be placed by quoting the previous sentence referring to Aschenbach’s last moments of consciousness:

Mann: Ihm war aber, als ob der bleiche und liebliche Psychagog dort draußen ihm lächle, ihm winke; als ob er, die Hand aus der Hüfte lösend, hinausdehnte, voranschwebe ins Verheißungsvoll-Ungeheure. Und wie so oft, machte er sich auf, ihm zu folgen. (Mann 1977: 398. My emphasis.)

Incredibly, Lowe-Porter’s version simply omits the last sentence in the penultimate paragraph of the novella (i.e. the italicised sentence in the above quotation), which describes Aschenbach’s final action before his death. It shows that the ‘author’ is still under Tadzio’s spell.

Lowe-Porter: It seemed to him the pale and lovely Summoner out there smiled at him and beckoned; as though with the hand he lifted from his hip, he pointed outward as he hovered on before into an immensity of richest expectation. [Omission] (Lowe-Porter 1978: 83)

Luke: But it was as if the pale and lovely soul-summoner out there were smiling to him, beckoning to him: as if he loosed his hand from his hip and pointed outward, hovering ahead and onward, into an immensity rich with unutterable expectation. And as so often, he set out to follow him. (Luke 1988: 263. My emphasis.)

Whether this omission is “more crucial” than the former as discussed is debatable, but it is certainly a totally incomprehensible translation act, to which Hayman (1995) in his biography of Thomas Mann also takes exception:

It was impossible for most English readers to understand the end of Death in Venice until a new translation by David Luke appeared in the United States during 1987 and in Britain during 1990. (Hayman 1995: 266)

Although Luke does not indicate what is lost by this omission nor why this omission should be regarded as “very much more” serious than the other omission quoted above, Hayman does give some intimation of its gravity:

But it’s unforgivable to jettison the sentence that gives the final glimpse into Aschenbach’s consciousness and rounds the story off by adding a layer of inevitability to his death. In Venice, casting aside his habitual self-discipline, he has often trailed Tadzio through the narrow streets; finally he’s under the comfortable illusion of succumbing to the same temptation - with the encouragement of a signal. (Hayman 1995: 266. My emphasis.)

In Lowe-Porter’s version, the omission gives Aschenbach’s death an uncalled-for religious quality leaving a certain ambiguity that there could be an element of the repentant sinner reconciled with death - a dignity unwarranted by the text. The source text implies the opposite of Lowe-Porter’s interpretation because the phrase Wie so oft refers to Aschenbach’s constant, barely concealed obsessive pursuit of Tadzio so that his last act was the last ‘sinful’ attempt to get up and follow the boy as usual. This is in ironic contrast with the romantic religiosity of the previous sentence, thus adding another layer of irony to the whole situation. Hayman’s interpretation is supported by Dittmann (1993) so that the wonderfully vague metaphysical phrase ins [page 48↓] Verheißungsvoll-Ungeheure has a hidden ironically sordid subtext because, alongside the highly romantic surface mystical implication, it can and, in this context probably does, refer to illicit sexual adventure. This line of argumentation is derived from Reed and Vaget:

Daß diese Geste (ins Verheißungsvoll-Ungeheure) als erotisches Signal zu verstehen sei, wird von Reed und Vaget durch den Verweis auf eine teilweise gleichlautende Formulierung in Thomas Manns Felix Krull begründet. Die Stelle erscheint in dem frühesten, kurz vor dem Tod in Venedig geschriebenen Teil des Romans. Es ist dort von Prostituierten die Rede, die ihre Kunden ‘ins Verheißungsvoll-Ungeheure’ locken, als erwarte sie ‘dort ein ungeheures nie gekostetes und grenzenloses Vergnügen’. (Dittmann 1993: 71).

At the same time, Tadzio plays the role of the Psychagog or the Summoner seductively beckoning his victim to a blissful sensual death with the result that Aschenbach almost eagerly tries to get up to follow him. In the end, the tragic hero accepts both his nature and the inevitability of his fate. This sentence also underlines the fact that Aschenbach was in a sense true to Tadzio to the point of death as if he had come to terms with his own ‘degradation’. These aspects, whether accurately described or not, are totally absent in the Lowe-Porter version so that the reader cannot even enter into dialogue with this theme.

At the beginning of Der Tod in Venedig, Aschenbach is disoriented by his sudden encounter with a man in the graveyard, a figure reminiscent of the ‘Grim Reaper’ whose horrific aspect is enhanced by the fact that he is standing in a higher position which increases the impression of his threatening ‘superiority’.

Mann: So - und vielleicht trug sein erhöhter und erhöhender Standort zu diesem Eindruck bei - hatte seine Haltung etwas herrisch Überschauendes, Kühnes oder selbst Wildes [...] (Mann 1977: 339. My emphasis.)

Lowe-Porter: Perhaps his heightened and heightening position helped out the impression Aschenbach received. At any rate, standing there as though at survey, the man had a bold and domineering, even a ruthless air. (Lowe-Porter 1978: 9. My emphasis.)

Luke: [...] and perhaps the raised point of vantage on which he stood contributed to this impression - an air of imperious survey, something bold or even wild about his posture. (Luke 1988: 196. My emphasis.)

The phrase his heightened and heightening position is virtually meaningless whereas Luke’s translation the raised point of vantage on which he stood conveys the physical location with perfect clarity. Even Luke misses the important connotation of the adjectival participle erhöhender which gives the impression that this mysterious figure is increasing in stature as if it were a supernatural phenomenon.²³

The next error occurs in the scene when Aschenbach disembarks from a vaporetto on his arrival in Venice. At first sight, the mistake may seem to be relatively innocuous, but it reveals a profound ignorance of how English syntax works. This example would seem to be merely infelicitous whereas, in fact, it is shown to be totally ungrammatical²⁴:

Mann: [...] sein Koffer hinderte ihn, der eben mit Mühsal die leiterartige Treppe hinuntergezerrt und geschleppt wird. (Mann 1977: 352. My emphasis.)

Lowe-Porter: Then came another delay while his trunk was worried down the ladder-like stairs. (Lowe-Porter 1978: 25. My emphasis.)

Luke: (He was) held up by his trunk which at that moment was being laboriously dragged and maneuvered down the ladder-like stairway. (Luke 1988: 211. My emphasis.)

Whilst Luke’s version conveys the sense with perfect clarity, Lowe-Porter’s italicised error verges on absurdity, i.e. with the notion of ‘a worried trunk’. This was probably a misapplication of the less common transitive verb to worry which often applies to animals as in the sentence, The dog worried the cat.

The next sentence in the same passage also contains some examples of unidiomatic English usage:

Mann: So sieht er sich minutenlang außerstande den Zudringlichkeiten des schauderhaften Alten zu entkommen,[...]. (Mann 1977: 352. My emphasis.)

[page 50↓] Lowe-Porter: Thus he was forced to endure the importunities of the ghastly young-old man, (Lowe-Porter 1978: 25. My emphasis.)

Luke: [...] and thus, for a full minute or two, he could not avoid the importunate attentions of the dreadful old man, (Luke 1988: 211)

Lowe-Porter’s infelicitous and baldly self-contradictory formulation the young-old man could almost imply the contrary of the original. A “young-old” man would normally refer to an old man with youthful vigour and appearance rather than, as is quite clearly intended, an old man desperately trying, but failing tragically to look young. The use of the hyphen in this formulation only adds to the absurd effect.

The next few examples all occur on page thirty-three of the Lowe-Porter translation and refer to the incident when Aschenbach first encounters the Polish family:

Mann: Allein das alles hatte sich so ausdrücklich, mit einem solchen Akzent von Zucht, Verpflichtung und Selbstachtung dargestellt, daß Aschenbach sich sonderbar ergriffen fühlte. (Mann 1977: 352. My emphasis.)

Lowe-Porter: Yet they had done this all so expressly, with such self-respecting discipline, and sense of duty that Aschenbach was impressed. (Lowe-Porter 1978: 33)

Luke: But this had all been carried out with such explicitness, with such a strongly accented air of discipline, obligation and self-respect that Aschenbach felt strangely moved. (Luke 1988: 219)

Lowe-Porter’s version expresses mere approval, thus missing the theme of Anstand which is also closely linked to the Würde motif. The sight of the family with their strict discipline has a great emotional effect on Aschenbach as it recalled the strict, ordered lives of his forefathers and also acted as a kind of conscience in contrast to the extravagance of the artistic existence. This theme is much more explicit in Tonio Kröger, but even here it serves to explain why Aschenbach felt “sonderbar ergriffen”.

At the beginning of Chapter V in Der Tod in Venedig, Lowe-Porter mistranslates the adjective unheimlich as “singular”, so that she misses the atmosphere of evil. Adjectives such as eerie, disturbing or even better, sinister might be a more appropriate translation:

Mann: In der vierten Woche seines Aufenthaltes auf dem Lido machte Gustav von Aschenbach einige die Außenwelt betreffende unheimliche Wahrnehmungen.(Mann 1977: 379. My emphasis.)

[page 51↓] Lowe-Porter: In the fourth week of his stay on (!) the Lido Gustave made certain singular observations touching the world about him. (Lowe-Porter 1978: 59. My italics and exclamation mark)

Luke: During the fourth week of his stay at the Lido Gustav von Aschenbach began to notice certain uncanny developments in the outside world. (Luke 1988: 241. My emphasis.)

Although Lowe-Porter’s slavish following of the German in mistranslating the preposition auf as on is merely an irritant, any reader tracing the theme of the gradual emergence of evil would have missed the subtly sinister implications, which add to the major themes of disease, evil and art.

Many other examples could be adduced where Lowe-Porter’s translations tone down the source text such as in page 67 when she translates the “frecher” musician described as halb Zuhälter, halb Komödiant as “half bully, half comedian.” Her reluctance to use a more accurate word such as pimp is all part of her strategy of underplaying the sexual references in the text.

It is to be hoped that this chapter together with Appendix I will now contribute to ending the debate concerning the reliability of the Lowe-Porter translations at least as far as the three stories are concerned. It is quite clear that her translations are not only very unreliable but that they also tone down and distort the central themes running through the stories. Luke’s translations, though still less easily available, can be regarded as at least a reliable workmanlike achievement. Lowe-Porter not only frequently confuses elementary lexical items but also fails to understand more complex syntactical structures. Some of the mistranslations show that she also failed to understand the basic themes which permeate Thomas Mann’s oeuvre. Even worse than this, a few of the examples in this chapter as well as the forty-nine grammatical errors and seventy-five lapses in English usage in Appendix I show that her command of English was very poor for a literary translator. The real point is not whether a certain Helen Lowe-Porter was a good translator or not, but that half the literary and academic establishment have, to quote Luke, “leaped” to the defence of very seriously flawed translations and still defend them to this day.

It will be shown in the next few chapters that she seemed to have little inkling of the sophisticated language games Thomas Mann plays whether he is writing in a poetic, philosophical or humorous vein. That her mistakes as demonstrated in this [page 52↓]chapter together with Appendix I are often below the level of minimal competence comprises the essence of the Lowe-Porter scandal.

Footnotes and Endnotes

¹³  See the previous chapter referring to Luke’s reply to Venuti in the TLS of 8th December, 1995.

¹⁴  Hayes’ emphasis on the importance of reliability is worth quoting in full to refute Venuti’s underplaying of this aspect: “Over the years little serious attention has been paid to the quality of translations. But in consideration of the increased interest in comparative literary study and the present demand for foreign literature in translation, we must concern ourselves, if not with their aesthetic values, at least with the reliability of translations of works of literature.” (Hayes 1974: 11. Hayes’ emphasis.)

¹⁵  Dittmann (1971)maintains that the portrait of Spinell is based mainly on the writer Arthur Holitscher, partly on the Viennese literary figure Peter Altenberg and partly on the author himself. Dittmann shows that Spinell is not just a moody weakling, but a certain literary type or aesthete: [...] “wichtiger als biographisch fixierbare Einzelheiten ist die Künstlerproblematik der Zeit und der in Spinell getroffene Typ des ästhetisierenden Literaten aus den Jahren um 1900 - für die Darstellung des Problems und dieses Typs leiht sich Thomas Mann Details von den verschiedensten Vertretern des eigenen Berufs.” (Dittmann 1971: 53)

¹⁶  In this extract, for example, it can also be noted that Lowe-Porter directly translates pathetisch as “pathetic”. This would also seem to be a mistranslation in view of the fact that emotional is not only the more usual translation, but it would also fit much better in the context because pathetisch in German is rarely used in the sense of being ridiculous or absurd. The full effect of the ‘bourgeois’ trying to be an artist could, however, be described as ‘pathetic’ as a result of being emotional so that the full effect of this error is more misleading than grave. Luke’s translation of this adjective as ‘solemn’ may be more appropriate although, within this context, the solemnity is meant in an ironical sense of ‘oversolemn’ or ‘pompous’, but sentimental or emotional would seem to fit better because the point being made is that dullness and banality are a result of art based purely on sincere emotions. In this extract, Lowe-Porter also omits some of Thomas Mann’s key terms for banal art in his list of definitions: Schwerfälliges, Täppisch-Ernstes, Unbeherrschtes, Unironisches, Ungewürztes, Langweiliges, Banales is reduced to “dull and doddering; without roots or outlines, with no sense of humour”. (The unique compound Täppisch-Ernstes is, for example, ignored completely and no distinction is made between the two differentiated notions Langweiliges and Banales). The adjective doddering is also totally inappropriate translation for Unbeherrschtes as doddering has connotations with age and decrepitude in the context of persons whereas the actual reference is to banal but well-meaning artistic productions. In this case, Luke’s list: “something clumsy, ponderous, pompous, ungainly, unironical, insipid, dreary and commonplace,” would seem to be much more accurate although it is strange that both translators avoid the obvious translation of Banales as banal. This time the cognate word would seem to be appropriate in order to contrast with ‘sophisticated’ art described in the same paragraph as: “und künstlerisch sind bloß die Gereiztheiten und kalten Ekstasen unseres verdorbenen, unseres artistischen Nervensystems.”(ibid.)

¹⁷ 

Thomas Mann expresses his view of Russian literature as “holy” (saintly) in the Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen:

Ist nicht der Russe der menschliche Mensch? Ist seine Literatur nicht die menschlichste von allen, - heilig vor Menschlichkeit? Rußland war immer in tiefster Seele immer demokratisch, ja christlich-kommunistisch, d. h. brüderlich gesonnen. [...] Ein Däne. Hermann Bang, war es, der die russische Literatur zuerst ‘die heilige’ genannt hat, - was ich nicht wußte, als ich sie im Tonio Kröger ebenfalls so nannte. (Mann 1974: 437-438)

¹⁸ 

One such example can again be found in the first chapter of Der Tod in Venedig, in which Mann describes Aschenbach’s feelings about his work:

Thomas Mann: [...] und es schien ihm, als ermangle sein Werk jener Merkmale feurig spielender Laune, die, ein Erzeugnis der Freude, mehr als irgendein innerer Gehalt, ein gewichtigerer Vorzug, die Freude der genießenden Welt bildeten. (Mann 1977: 342. My emphasis.)

Lowe-Porter’s translation barely makes sense for syntactical reasons:

Lowe-Porter: To him it seemed his work had ceased to be marked by that fiery play of fancy which is the product of joy, and more, and more potently, than any intrinsic content, forms in turn the joy of the receiving world. (Lowe-Porter 1978: 11. My emphasis.)

However, Luke’s version which takes minor liberties with the rather convoluted German syntax, makes at least some sense to the English reader and generally conveys the import of the original:

Luke: It seemed to him that his work lacked that element of sparkling and joyful improvisation, that quality which surpasses any intellectual substance in its power to delight the receptive world. (Luke 1988: 199. My emphasis.)

In Lowe-Porter’s version, the subject of the verb forms is not clear as the relative pronoun would need to be repeated if the subject is the phrase play of fancy. Grammatically, the noun work would have to be the subject which would, however, have the effect of depriving the sentence of any sense. The sense is further weakened by the obscure comma in the phrase and more, and more potently. This phrase might make sense with some phatic inclusion such as and what is more, it is all the more powerfully the case that... in which case the whole sentence would have to be reformulated. Similarly, the collocation intrinsic content is obscure. What is meant, in this context, by intrinsic content as opposed to extrinsic content? The notion of forming the joy of the receiving world is also unclear as the noun joy tends to be a natural spontaneous sustained emotion rather than a process which can be formed.

¹⁹ 

On page thirteen, Lowe-Porter translates in a totally idiosyncratic way:

Mann: [...] sein Talent (war) geschaffen, den Glauben des breiten Publikums und die bewundernde, fordernde Teilnahme der Wählerischen zugleich zu gewinnen. (Mann 1977: 343. My emphasis.)

Lowe-Porter: [...] his genius was calculated to win at once the adhesion of the general public and the admiration, both sympathetic and stimulating, of the connoisseur. (Lowe-Porter 1978: 13. My emphasis.)

Luke’s version is again more accurate:

Luke: His talent had a native capacity, both to inspire confidence in the general public and to win admiration and encouragement from the discriminating connoisseur. (Luke 1988: 201. My emphasis.)

In Lowe-Porter’s version, the noun adhesion is far too physical and combines badly with the adverbial phrase at once because the noun adhesion refers more to a process than a sudden event. The metaphor is also not made clear. In addition, there is no real justification in adding the adjectives sympathetic and stimulating to the text. The adjective sympathetic in the phrase sympathetic admiration would seem to be a confusion with the ‘false friends’ sympathisch and sympathetic because, in English, the collocation sympathetic admiration makes little sense.

²⁰  This should, of course, be ‘side of it’. It is remarkable that this printing error still exists in all the printed versions and is another reminder that some of the responsibility for the mistakes must be taken by the publishers and (or the lack of) proof readers. See Appendix I B 2 (i) for other similar examples.

²¹  Even ‘utilitarian’ ethics would not help to clear up this difficulty as presumably ‘a useful passion’ would simply increase the happiness of the greatest number, but even within the principles of the Benthamite hedonistic calculus, the notion of will, passions and emotions possessing inherent ‘utility’ would contradict the very spirit of this consequentialist ethic.

²² “Wunderlich unglaubhaftes, beschämendes, komisch-traumartiges Abenteuer”, [. . .]. (Mann 1977: 369).

²³  Both translators miss the mythical or even supernatural poetic aspects of the original conveyed by the abstract nominalised adjectives. The magnificently ambiguous formalisation etwas herrisch Überschauendes has associations of both ‘schaudern’ and ‘schauern’. However, these are more stylistic aspects which will be dealt with thoroughly in later chapters.

²⁴  The metaphor may be within the bounds of possibility, but certainly not as the non-existent phrasal verb to worry down. If the meaning is purely adverbial, then another qualifier is necessary such as in the sentence, The dog worried the cat all the way down the stairs. In the passive form with an omitted agent, even this clear cut case does not work owing to the ambiguity of the construction. Thus, the sentence, The cat was worried all the way down the stairs would normally mean that the cat was anxious during its descent down the stairs whereas the progressive form excludes this ambiguity The cat was being worried all the way down the stairs, but Lowe-Porter uses the former construction when the latter was the only correct one with the resultant absurdity of the suitcase being anxious during its descent. There are many such examples, six of which are classified under the heading Confusion of Transitive and Intransitive verbs in Appendix I (B 2. (iv) (a)).